Railroad Drug Tests Delayed

January 4, 1986|United Press International

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court, in an emergency ruling Friday, stopped Monday`s start of nationwide drug testing for 250,000 railroad workers until it could rule on union contentions the program amounts to unreasonable search.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to stop imposition of the breath, blood and urine test program developed by the Transportation Department and the Railway Administration.

The federal rules, which would be carried out by all the nation`s railroad companies, call for testing of employees where there is a ``reasonable suspicion`` workers are impaired by alcohol or drugs.

But union attorney Lawrence Mann called the program an ``unnecessary and unjustified invasion of human dignity and privacy`` and said the rules would allow testing with ``little or no probable cause or particularized suspicion.``

Mann said the regulations are so broad that they require testing on the ``mere chance`` that a railroad rule may have been violated.

Mann argued that the rules also would violate the railway labor act by denying employees the right to have a union representative present during testing.

On Nov. 26, U.S. District Judge Charles Legge approved the plan.

Appeals court judges Stephen Reinhardt and Dorothy W. Nelson agreed to stop enactment of the regulations set for Monday. The decision gives the court time to hear the union appeal.